Chapter 26: The Most Important Question Waits

An uneasy feeling settled into Koolah’s heart as she saw the cottage. The sight of it nestled amid the trees should have made her glad, relieved. The door was open. The wards, which had been repaired, breached. As Koolah dismounted from her broom she quickened her pace and stirred the magics of her hat.

Qusheab was dead.

She was behind the door, and thankfully her charm had protected her spirit, as Jadah’s had been protected. Koolah was about to do the same ritual that she had done for Jadah, when she noticed that Qusheab was clutching something tightly. A little bit of magic to give more motion to her stiff hand, and the object was revealed.

It was a small sculpture, made from paper and magic. It was some kind of plant.

“A mandragora… Oh Qushqush, you didn’t need to try so hard. You’ll be fine with the call of new day’s horn.”

Carefully putting the sculpture away, Koolah stirred the flow of magic and she chanted what she had before.

“The three were once one, the three came from one, to one they shall return, to return to wholeness”

Qusheab vanished as Jadah did, and the charm was made one piece again, as it had be before. Next Koolah turned her attention to the wards and the state of the cottage. She was only partly surprised to find the state of ruin it was in. The wards were in much better condition. The attacker only broke them to flee after it had slain Qusheab. Still, that had to be fixed.

Koolah gently touched one of the patches of her hat. It shone brightly and then Koolah made a sound not unlike a cat coughing up a hairball. A sparkling green goo exited from her mouth and with a wave of her hands, it floated as a glob in the air. She directed this to broken patterns of the ward and applied it, and directly after the wards were made whole. They were of course weaker after having been broken and repaired so many times.

-We can’t stay here much longer- Koolah thought.

Heart heavy, she closed the door and retreated to the bedroom, taking note of the destruction as she went. She allowed herself a moment of weakness, and collapsed on the bed. She even cried a bit.

The weight of protecting her family. How close they were to failure. Stress. Strain. Koolah put up such a strong and cold front. Yet, before the fall of the Dauftima pride… she had not been the most responsible of those in the pride.

-Why did we come here? The brew?-

The most important question.

-What is the brew in the centre of the cottage?-

Koolah pulled out the sculpture Qusheab had made. A mandragora.

-Was this the nature of the attacker? A mandragora? Something we were going to use became corrupted? Did it soak in our fears and worries? Our desperation?-

Koolah looked about through the books in the bedroom, but she knew. The mandragora if it was the mandragora would have already destroyed the recipe.

-What kind of mandragora was it?-

A mandragora in Kigan is a kind of mystic herb. A root in the shape of a being that is not a plant. The most common is the ones in the shape of humans, but ones in the shape of chickens, cats and even goblins exist. Many have quite different effects and most have particular difficulties in harvesting them. Most are able to move around of their own accord. If there was ever a plant that could become a monster, it would be a mandragora. There are even whispers of mandragora as powerful as lesser dragons.

-If it was an ingredient of the brew… then we have to purify it, instead of simply destroying it-

She could not answer the most important question on her own. Once her sisters were restored then they could work together. To delve into their broken memories to restore what they knew. To find out what the recipe of the brew in the cottage was. To then know what mandragora it was that became twisted.

Then they could bait it. Capture it. Purify it.

There was however another question.

-Who will it be possessing?-

Koolah put the questions from her mind and took out the charm she and her sisters had made against the grand loop magic. It floated above her and she waited.

The sound of the horn would be the sign of another cycle in the loop and with that call, her sisters would be restored, and without their memories and spirits damaged this time.

Koolah waited.