"All right," he says, getting up slowly to leave. His everything is sore, but whatever, he'll deal with it, he's not dead. "An hour-ish, then." And he's got his CiD, should something happen between then and now.
He makes his way back home, because there are some supplies there he needs -- he's figuring out all this focus and ritual stuff mostly on his own, or else out of books, some from notes taken in Martel's library (and he's not certain whether the other man is keeping track of which volumes Wolfgang is studying, but would not be surprised) and some from books from occult stores, secondhand, other people's notes in them. It's one of those he takes up to the roof with him, because it is written in Hebrew, and he trusts his own people over others.
He also brings a saucepan from the kitchen, because like hell will he ever own anything that can actually be called a cauldron.
It's a pretty simple ritual: the pan gets filled halfway with distilled water, into which he adds three drops of river water, three drops of wax, and then spits in three times. (Sometimes magic is gross, but virgin spittle comes up over and over in his books, and -- it works.) He braids two of the hairs from the river along with one of his own together, then ties a golden ring to the end and suspends it over this, gently rocking it back and forth until it hits the edge -- ping, ping, ping...
On the seventh strike, the sounds begin to change, to take shape. He has to close his eyes to hear it properly, to see, his mind fixed on that face, her anger, her sadness, that face.
Berach Carmody, it says.
When he opens his eyes, he sees, in the wax floating on the surface of the water, that it has taken the shape of a house on a street, and it must be Baedal because he recognises the Spire in the distance behind it. It's gone just as suddenly, but he remembers, has it locked in his mind's eye.
Frowning heavily, he dips the ring in the water and swirls the whole thing up with his hand, disrupting the magic and ending the rote. It takes little effort to clean up, dry his hands, and climb back downstairs and back out the door, heading towards that same spot on the river -- this time armed with a name, a face, and an idea of where to look.
no subject
He makes his way back home, because there are some supplies there he needs -- he's figuring out all this focus and ritual stuff mostly on his own, or else out of books, some from notes taken in Martel's library (and he's not certain whether the other man is keeping track of which volumes Wolfgang is studying, but would not be surprised) and some from books from occult stores, secondhand, other people's notes in them. It's one of those he takes up to the roof with him, because it is written in Hebrew, and he trusts his own people over others.
He also brings a saucepan from the kitchen, because like hell will he ever own anything that can actually be called a cauldron.
It's a pretty simple ritual: the pan gets filled halfway with distilled water, into which he adds three drops of river water, three drops of wax, and then spits in three times. (Sometimes magic is gross, but virgin spittle comes up over and over in his books, and -- it works.) He braids two of the hairs from the river along with one of his own together, then ties a golden ring to the end and suspends it over this, gently rocking it back and forth until it hits the edge -- ping, ping, ping...
On the seventh strike, the sounds begin to change, to take shape. He has to close his eyes to hear it properly, to see, his mind fixed on that face, her anger, her sadness, that face.
Berach Carmody, it says.
When he opens his eyes, he sees, in the wax floating on the surface of the water, that it has taken the shape of a house on a street, and it must be Baedal because he recognises the Spire in the distance behind it. It's gone just as suddenly, but he remembers, has it locked in his mind's eye.
Frowning heavily, he dips the ring in the water and swirls the whole thing up with his hand, disrupting the magic and ending the rote. It takes little effort to clean up, dry his hands, and climb back downstairs and back out the door, heading towards that same spot on the river -- this time armed with a name, a face, and an idea of where to look.