Strange Noises Fiction by Rachel Greenham

“Why do I have to be awake?” I ask. I can just tell this is going to really hurt.

“You must be awake to reject the charms from your body,” the healer says. He is a male Neri shaman, distinguished primarily to my eyes by his simple white robe. Such garb looks almost as out of place here as it would back home. His age is impossible to guess at. He has that look about him shared by Fareis of enormous age, but he has the face of a beautiful young man. “You will have chosen them and bonded with them out of love for the Goddess. You must be awake to renounce them.” He looks at me sympathetically. “You must hate them.”

“That’s not going to be a problem,” I say lightly.

He and Fareis stare at me as if I’d just said something bizarre.

“They are bound to your flesh with your love for the Goddess,” Fareis reminds me. “It will be difficult to do this without hate for the Goddess.”

“You may become apostate,” the shaman adds.

How do I say to them that a fortnight ago the Goddess was, to me, a fictional abstract; some minor detail in my character’s backstory to allow her access to a list of cleric spells up to a certain level? How do I explain to them that I come from a culture where belief in a single, omnipotent God is the norm, even though I don’t share that belief? The pantheon of limited beings of this culture are, I understand, literally real; but while that makes them powerful beings to respect or fear, questions of faith and love just don’t arise. How can I tell them what I think of a Goddess who answers offerings and prayers made by blunderingly, faithlessly, following the motions?

I say nothing.

“Charm magic is often favoured by the young,” the shaman says. “It is faster, more accessible, but it can be dangerous, as you’ve seen.”

“Like the dark side,” I say.

“Dark side?” He looks at me puzzled. Immediately I know I said something nonsensical. Of course it would not be possible to work magic that would be contrary to the will of the Goddess, and she is considered generally benign.

“Nothing. Never mind,” I say. “I think we can safely say I’ve grown out of charm magic.” In fact, I’m thinking, if I don’t have to cast another spell ever, it’ll be too soon. It all seems so mechanical in the game. You can role-play around that to spice it up in a session, but ultimately it’s machinistic and useful.

I look at my hands, with the mess of charms embedded and growing agonizingly into my swollen palms and fingers. This is just weird shit. Even the luck spell that seemed to work; it was just too weird. The luck that followed needed to have been set up months, even years in the past. I suddenly think; it could just as easily have put Jalese in that slaver ship hold for us to find, so she could take me right back to the inn where she once worked, where Taniel’s old box-harp was resting behind the bar, where the innkeeper just happened to have a vacancy for Market because someone who normally worked there just happened to have just given birth…

My luck was paid for with Jalese’s life.

I am never doing magic again.

“Shall we get on with it then?” I ask.