“Already I’ve done too much,” said Hannah. “An invocation like this, strong as it is, is nothing to be trifled with.”
“But what happens if you do?” asked Mizuki. “Like, how would it be bad?”
“Oh, probably nothin’ much,” nodded Hannah. “Most likely we’d get a visit from a cleric of Kesbin, if it was noticed. They can levy fines through the hexmaster, same as any church.”
Mizuki relaxed. “And that’s it? We wouldn’t be,” she hesitated, “hexed?”
Hannah laughed. “Imagine that!” she said. “Imagine thinkin’ in this day and age that you’d be hexed of all things for makin’ changes to a house!”
Mizuki scowled. “Well, I don’t know, do I?” she asked. “I’ve never run afoul of the churches.”
“Yes, you have!” said Hannah, still laughing. “You have loads of times.”
“Yeah,” said Mizuki. “But not like… sacrilege.”
“Well,” said Hannah, “it’s fine.”
“What’s a hex?” asked Isra. These were decidedly not in the holy books.
“It means six,” said Alfric. Isra had known this. “But in this context, a ‘hex’ is a godly curse of some kind, administered by a cleric of the six gods.”
“What does it do?” asked Isra. She had been eating away at her sandwich as the others talked and was now almost finished.
“Varies by the gods,” said Hannah. “They’re not really used anymore, except in dungeons, and Garos has the weakest of the lot, aside from Qymmos. Might be better to think of a hex as the opposite of a miracle, or blessin’, or whatever you want to call the things that a cleric like me can do.”
“A spell,” said Mizuki, nodding. Hannah gave her a look that suggested disagreement but said nothing.
“You deal in healing though,” said Isra, feeling confused. “What harm could you do?”
“Oh, well, not much as yet, but I’m still just a journeyman,” said Hannah. “And there’s not much ability to practice the sorts of things I’d need to call on. But if a cleric of Garos wants to hurt a person, she’ll lay hands on him. There are two general methods, one easy and clean, the other hard and brutal. The first one, the easy one—” She hesitated. “Does anyone mind me sharin’ this over lunch?”
“I think I’m done anyway,” said Verity, pushing her plate forward. She’d eaten only half of what Mizuki had prepared. “It was delicious, but there was simply way too much of it.”
“I’m done too,” said Alfric. He looked at Verity’s plate. “Unless you mind me taking that other half?”
“Be my guest,” Verity replied. Alfric reached over and plucked the half sandwich up.
“I don’t mind,” said Mizuki. “Unless it involves guts.”
“And if it does involve guts?” asked Hannah.
Mizuki had taken a bite of her sandwich and took a moment to chew and swallow it before answering. “I don’t like guts.”
“Well,” said Hannah. “The first method of attack, for a cleric of Garos—and again, I can’t say that I’d fare too well if I tried, not in combat, but I s’pose it’s somethin’ that’ll get tested sooner than later—the first method is easy and clean. It’s just the reverse of symmetrical healin’, isn’t it? You find a wound on their body and mirror it on the other side. One slash across their skin becomes two, a puncture gets doubled, and they bleed out twice as fast. Now, obviously it’s not great, because you have to be touchin’ them, and they have to already be hurt, but I could manage it, if I had to.”
“And the second?” asked Isra.
Hannah eyed Mizuki, who was wolfing down her sandwich like she was worried someone was about to say something that would make her lose her appetite. When she’d swallowed the last bite, she gave a thumbs-up to Hannah.
“Well, the body isn’t all symmetrical, as a sad matter of fact,” said Hannah. “Even leavin’ aside the ways that arms, legs, skin, and so on are different if you’re not symmetricalized, there are places where we’re just plain squiggly.” She patted her stomach. “And yes, that includes the guts. The guts weave back and forth inside the body like a drunkard on his way home. And since the body is so otherwise symmetrical, a cleric like me could lay hands on someone and make the guts suddenly mirror themselves.” She shook her head. “Nasty way to die, because it’s not fast. Usually with symmetrical guts you bleed out before you can starve. And there’s no way to fix it, because that kind of thing is beyond even the highest cleric of Oeyr.”
“Welp,” said Mizuki, “definitely glad I finished before you said that.”
“The heart isn’t symmetrical either,” said Isra.
“No, it’s not,” said Hannah. “And you could kill someone that way too, it would just be a smaller target, harder to do, and a killin’ hex from Garos, well, the point isn’t just in the killin’, if you catch me.”
“You’re talking about traditionally though,” said Alfric. “It’s not something that clerics do now, because they’re not in the business of hexing.” This was directed at Isra, and she appreciated it.
“Oh, ay,” said Hannah. “And shame on me if I made anyone feel different.” She looked around the table at the other four. “It’s part of the old ways, the very old ways. You’d get in a lot of trouble if you did any of that on a person.”
“What are the other hexes?” asked Isra, mostly out of morbid curiosity.
“Ay,” said Hannah, “let me think for a moment and remember.” She drummed her fingers on the table, then looked around. “Is this too much?”
“I’m done eating, so I’m going to take a walk,” said Mizuki. “I’d rather not get into the gruesomeness of it.”
“I’ll accompany you, if that’s all right,” said Alfric, getting up from his seat and taking his plate. “Can I clear anyone else’s plates?”
“I should actually probably do dishes first,” said Mizuki.
The plates were cleared away, and then it was just Hannah, Isra, and Verity.
“You want to hear, ay?” asked Hannah.
“Yes,” said Verity. “I’m interested.”
“Well,” said Hannah. “The hex of Oeyr, God of Emergence, is usually through breakin’ somethin’. Sometimes bones, sometimes makin’ rips in your muscles, especially your heart.” Hannah tapped her chest. There were two full sections of the Oeya Ashar devoted to ‘defects’, but in Isra’s opinion, it was a relatively small area of what the holy text focused on. Oeyr was not the God of Disorder or God of Asymmetry, but the God of Emergence, how things followed rules with sometimes surprising consequences. And yes, chaos and defects were often a result.
“The hex of Bixzotl, God of Copies,” said Hannah, “is in copyin’ somethin’ internal to you, like growin’ you a new heart, which kills you before the copy can fade. The worse one is copyin’ all your blood, which also kills you.” She rubbed her chin. “I don’t think that Qymmos, God of Sets, has a hex, but to tell you the truth, I may be wrong and shouldn’t have spoken with such authority earlier. Handy people, but not so good at the physical. Then there’s Kesbin, God of Nothing, and Xuphin, God of Infinity. Kesbin is easy, you just get somethin’ removed, and at its worst, from an archbishop or the like, the whole of you just vanishes. For Xuphin, it’s usually cancer.”
Isra frowned. “You gave their titles.”
“Well,” said Hannah. “I did. I… wasn’t sure you knew your gods, ay? Meant no offense by it.”
Isra kept frowning. She didn’t know what to say in response.
“Thank you for going through that,” said Verity. “It was informative. I don’t believe my tutors ever covered it, though I do recognize a few of those from plays or stories.”
“Like I said,” Hannah said with a shrug, “hexes aren’t really used against people anymore, and shame that they ever were.” She looked at Verity. “Kept your lunch?”
“Why wouldn’t I have?” asked Verity. “The dead things we saw in the dungeon were far worse than any description you could have given.”
“Good,” Hannah said, nodding.
“We have the gods in Tarbin,” said Isra. “I have the six holy books in my home. I’ve read them.”
Hannah nodded. “I meant no offense,” she said again. “I only thought there were things you didn’t know, and it might be a way to say for you so you didn’t have to sit and wonder or feel like a dunce by askin’ about it.”
“Not that you’d be a dunce just because you didn’t know something,” said Verity, rushing to follow Hannah.
“It was a kind gesture,” said Isra, making an effort to relax. Sometimes with the animals, they realized that they had made a mistake and took some time to calm down. She endeavored to be better than them. “Thank you for the thought.”
“No problem,” said Hannah. “Now, since you’re here and all, can we finally see what you can do?”