It was not only the raw power of the Artan Legacy that gripped the imaginations of all who feared it—the ability to conjure fire or hurl lightning. Such spectacles, though dazzling, could be matched by simple tools of iron and powder, more efficient and less taxing than years of laborious study. No, its true terror resided in the subtlety of its most feared hexerei—the delicate manipulation of thoughts, the subversion of the mind’s defenses. This was the kind of arcana that could turn the most stalwart of men into unwitting accomplices in their own downfall, the art that left so many magians branded as outlaws, their heads hunted for the clever crimes they committed in shadows.
We needed a victim, someone to demonstrate this darker facet of Artalar to Princess, though she did not yet grasp the full scope of what I intended. She had already determined who it should be. Without revealing specifics, I enlisted the aid of an errand boy roaming the west wing’s corridors, instructing him to summon Raiya with urgent news. The boy, lanky and youthful, moved quickly to carry out the task.
As we waited, I prepared with meticulous care. The weight of curiosity and the desire to test the limits of my knowledge outweighed whatever remorse I might have felt. When Raiya finally arrived, still in her sleeping gown, slippers whispering against the marble floors, she stepped onto the sigil-laden cloth I had positioned at the room’s entrance, her path perfectly anticipated.
“Vlu-darash!” I muttered, snapping my fingers. Princess, no doubt, must have found this particular part of the experiment familiar.
I swiftly followed after Raiya, who remained near the cloth, her movements sluggish, her posture swaying as though she had been struck by a sudden, disorienting stupor. Her gaze was unfocused, her limbs barely held upright, as if intoxicated. I placed another sigil-imbued handkerchief near her forehead, murmuring the incantation, “Amib du Forgouz,” in a low, deliberate tone.
Raiya responded exactly as expected, and I was overcome with a surge of exultation. The Artan Legacy was working! She stood upright, her expression void of emotion, her gaze vacant, indifferent to everything around her, like a broken ox. To confirm my success, I prodded her shoulder repeatedly, yet she remained unresponsive. Marvelous!
Without resistance, she permitted me to manipulate her clothes as I pleased. I drew another sigil onto a scrap of paper, lifted her sleeve to expose the skin of her arm, and chanted with rhythmic precision, “Ongul van-daztic, ongul van-daztic, ongul van-daztic.” Then, carefully, I secured the crumpled paper to her neck, ensuring it made direct contact with her.
With a single clap, I roused her from her stupor. Raiya blinked, confusion clouding her features as she squinted against the dim light of the hallway.
“Stop daydreaming, Raiya. Were you even listening to me?” I demanded, mimicking Princess’s haughty, self-important tone.
“Huh?” Raiya's confusion persisted. “Oh, Milady… de Irchard? Yes, yes, of course I was listening. What was…?”
“You disappoint me, child,” I nagged her with hands on my hips, shaking my head. “You shall go to the kitchen, walking on all fours. You are to act like a goat gone mad and not stop that act, no matter what happens. If anyone approaches you, headbutt their legs or rear-end. Did you understand this time?”
“I… understand,” Raiya accepted, but puzzlement did not leave her fair face. “Why am I doing this, Milady de Irchard?”
“Because I am telling you to. Ongul van-daztic,” I triggered the sigil for the last time now that the instruction was given. Preparations were ready.
Raiya dropped to her hands and knees, emitting a bleat that echoed eerily in the corridor. Princess and I stifled our laughter, though it was difficult. I kept a safe distance to avoid any unwanted headbutts, watching in silent amusement as she obeyed my commands with mindless determination.
“What just happened?” I expected and awaited this question from Princess, and I had an answer quite ready for her, simplified but exhaustive enough.
“I used three hexerei in quick succession,” I proudly proclaimed, not minding Raiya listening. “The first one was a very basic Sigil of Mental Wall. Placing it on a surface and triggering it is like crashing into an invisible wall, and if the subject is standing exactly on top of it, it can cause a loss of alertness, confusion, and dizziness. It made the second and third hexerei far more effective due to the subject’s weakened state. With me so far?”
“So you can use arcana with my body! That is incredible, Dubart! Why are we even bothering with faking a will? Artalar is a sure way to become filthy rich without even trying,” she suggested.
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“We shall see if you maintain that enthusiasm come morning,” I replied, foreshadowing the potential consequences. She did not press for further details, but I could not help but elaborate, more for my own satisfaction than hers. “The second sigil I used was Mental Fragility, arguably the most critical of the set. It can only be employed on those significantly weaker, mentally speaking, than the user; hence the Mental Wall hexerei was needed. It strips inhibitions and makes the subject very receptive to instructions. For fleeting moments, they fail to react to outside stimuli—she ignored me rubbing the sigil on her arm, or securing the paper to her neck. Needless to say, Raiya should have no recollection of this encounter.”
“Something has been bothering me for a while, Dubart,” Princess reasoned when I left a slight pause to catch my breath. “I distinctly remember stepping over a piece of cloth with something weird drawn on it going into your room. You snapped your fingers and said some words back then.”
“Correct. That was the previous Winter,” I admitted. “Exactly what is happening to Raiya is the same I meant to make you go through. Obviously, it did not work. You were immutable before my ‘powers’.”
“You little piece of…” she censored herself before finishing. “That was for slapping you back then, wasn’t it?”
“My right eye went blind for the entire night, Princess. I was convinced to be left with only one functional eye on top of everything else.”
“You called me a harlot!” she said as if that was an excuse.
“You were behaving like one! But enough! The third sigil was taught to me by a traveling magian, one of the most dangerous techniques in existence if he is to be believed. Despite its relative ease of usage, it makes it possible to relay orders to a somewhat willing subject. You cannot force a man to take his own life, but you could persuade him into a situation that might lead to it. It works best on servants and the weak-minded, which is why I intended to employ it on you.”
“You can go fuck yourself, Dubart,” she muttered, though I had grown accustomed to her colorful language.
“In any case, after stunning Raiya, stripping away any mental resistance, and intimidating her with your station, we have now concluded putting her in a trance. She barely registers reality and thinks of only the instruction given,” I signaled at the young thing crawling on all fours, bleating every now and then, minding not what a fool she was making out of herself.
“This is terrifying, to be honest. You can make anyone do stuff like this? I’m not sure anyone should be trusted with this much power,” Princess opined in words similar to what I had heard spoken by others regarding the Artan Legacy.
“Accomplishing this is far more complicated than you believe. Becoming resistant to these effects or learning to recognize when Artalar is being used is also much more manageable than learning these hexerei in the first place,” I quoted one of the main disadvantages of attempting to manipulate minds.
“But you still always hear news about mavericks tricking people and stealing from them.”
“Indeed,” I acknowledged. “Many misuse the Artan Legacy for nefarious purposes.”
“Like what we are doing now?” Princess giggled, though there was a trace of guilt in her laughter.
Despite her lighthearted comment, I felt a momentary pang of shame. Yet, the exhilaration of successfully employing Artalar far outweighed any remorse. The Artan Legacy! At my beck and call!
Raiya’s trance could not continue uninterrupted, however. She did not make it to the kitchens unnoticed. Another woman, similarly dressed in a sleeping gown, appeared at the far end of the hallway, carrying a small candlestick that cast flickering shadows on the walls.
“Raiya!” this girthy newcomer called out, her voice filled with concern. I quickly concealed myself in the shadows, away from the moonlight that threatened to betray me.
The stocky woman with the candle hurried over, her brow furrowed with worry. She did not strike me as a noble, nor did I recognize her as a guest or a courtier. This must have been another servant.
“What is wrong with you? Why are you crawling like that? What are those noises?” the maid had a right to wonder.
As an answer, my hypnotized experiment vacantly stared at the newcomer and bleated, threateningly approaching.
The woman with the candlestick was visibly uncomfortable and took a few steps back, not quite discouraging Raiya from trying to close the distance. As her orders demanded, Raiya rushed on all fours and attacked the other maid, headbutting the shins without truly causing any harm.
Regardless, the new maid was sufficiently alarmed and yelped. It only encouraged Raiya to attack again. I had to contain my laughter at seeing my previous model chase around someone in circles, bent on smashing her head against their rear end.
The other maid, scared and confused, constantly yelled a single idea, “W-witches!” and the volume of her voice only grew. “Witches, she’s been bewitched! R-Raiya, you have to stop! A witch is making you do this!” she attempted to break the effects by holding Raiya’s head, who indifferently maintained her aim to ram her companion’s legs. When the well-meaning effort did not end Raiya’s trance, the stocky maid screamed in terror.
“I may have… miscalculated,” I admitted out loud so Princess could hear.
What I had envisioned as a mere joke had turned into something far more troubling. I failed to account for the superstitious nature of simple folk. Instead of laughing at the ridiculous display, the maid had leapt to wild conclusions. How could anyone possibly compare the scientific nature of the Artan Legacy with ignorant beliefs of witchery?
I had no choice but to flee. The maid’s cries would soon summon others, and there was nothing to be gained from lingering; being found having any relation with this incident was not in Princess’s best interest. Proving my dominion over sigils to successfully employ hexerei should be enough consolation from our otherwise disastrous experiment.
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