by Andrea Höst
Sukata Illuma was reading it. She gave Kendall a long look when she came in the door, then handed the note over. "What changed your mind?"
Kendall hesitated. She liked Sukata, so far as it was possible to like someone who kept herself separate and hardly ever spoke. It wasn't so much explaining that was the problem – it was convenient that someone was around for her to give a message to – it was just that it was Sukata. Not only was her mother probably going to be in danger on this trip, but the offer of personal tutoring from Rennyn Claire was something Kendall suspected most would-be mages would value a good deal more than she did. And that wasn't even counting how strange the Kellian were about the remnants of the Montjuste-Surclere family.
"Guess I saw the sense of not cutting off my nose to spite my face," Kendall said slowly. She chewed her lip. "Sukata – why do you stay over here if your mother lives in the next building?"
"That is a rule of the Arkathan. Few are granted an exception, though of course many have now been given leave to return to their families for the duration of the Grand Summoning. And while the building is repaired."
"Are you going to go into the Sentene when you've finished with the Arkathan?"
"Perhaps. Sentene mages need to learn how to apply their knowledge in trying situations. It's a good proving ground."
"Proving what?"
With rare physical expression Sukata lifted one shoulder. "Whether I am capable of more."
More. Just as Kendall had guessed, Sukata wanted to be a real mage. "Walk back with me," she said, picking up her uniform. "I don't think I've much time left."
Kellian could be deceptively obliging. Even though Kendall had barely spoken to her before today, Sukata had answered her questions and followed along now quite as if she would do whatever she was told. But that, Kendall would bet, was because she was more than curious about what was going on. Kendall went back to the stable yard, reaching it just before Rennyn, who was carrying a funny-looking crystal and metal thing attached to a chain.
"Wait here a moment," Kendall told Sukata, and followed her would-be teacher around the other side of the coach. "You can lecture two people as easily as one, can't you?" she hissed.
Rennyn glanced in the direction where Sukata waited, hidden by the coach. For a moment there was the faintest hint of – dismay? – on her face, but then she shrugged. "True enough." She moved so that she could see Sukata, whose wide eyes and frozen stance made clear that Kendall had spoken too loudly. "Though, unlike Kendall, I expect there's people you'll want to ask permission of before going on tours of Tyrland."
"I – yes." Sukata recovered rapidly, making a smart little bow. "Thank you, my Lady. I will be quick." She vanished through the increasing tangle of Sentene and Ferumguard getting ready to depart.
"Nice gesture," Rennyn said, when the Kellian girl was out of sight. "I didn't expect it of you."
"I knew it would really matter to her," Kendall said, ducking her head. "I couldn't just tell her where I was going, knowing that."
"Troubling to have a conscience, isn't it?"
That was the sort of comment which made Kendall remember that this woman was a descendant of Black Queen Solace. Rennyn climbed into their coach and sat fiddling with the crystal thing, fixing a thick bracelet around her wrist, but Kendall stayed outside watching the Sentene and Ferumguard organise themselves. Sukata must have run at full Kellian speed, returning clutching a small bag just as Lady Weston showed up flanked by Captain Faille and Captain Illuma.
"Well, child. You do have a talent for attracting would-be teachers." Lady Weston's wry tone acknowledged that she herself had failed to teach Kendall anything. "It is good of–" She broke off, looking into the coach, then shook her head, smiling. Rennyn Claire was curled up on one of the seats, deeply asleep. "I will save my speeches, then," Lady Weston continued in a lowered tone. "Take care, you two. Follow the orders you are given. I need not warn you of the dangers, since you have already witnessed what you may face. Most of all, listen. Make the most of this opportunity."
Be good and listen hard. Kendall muttered something appropriate and climbed into the coach, deciding that Rennyn Claire was just as good at taking people over as Ma Lippon. Deciding how things should go, and getting her way by pretending not to care whether you did what she wanted. Or, no – more that she knew you'd do it, because her way was the right way. Surclere arrogance.
Not that Kendall hadn't just done the same thing to Sukata, who was sitting very upright gazing out of the window not because she was interested in the stable yard, but because she'd really rather stare at Rennyn Claire. Her face was perfectly composed and her eyes were totally lit up. Happy beyond words. Maybe this was why they did it, those people who tried to take you over, who thought they knew what was best.
More likely they just wanted to make themselves feel good.
Chapter Seventeen
"Like a mother duck and her ducklings."
This made Sukata's eyes widen, and Lieutenant Meniar laughed outright, then tried to pretend he hadn't. It was true though. They'd stopped somewhere south of Knifecliff, on a white road cut through rolling greenery. Rennyn Claire had started walking about, dangling the big round crystal which apparently held the Black Queen's focus, and a little deputation of Sentene and Hand mages trailed behind her, while everyone else watched. So serious they made Kendall's teeth ache.
The road, overlooked by a farmhouse and plenty of sheep, ran alongside an abrupt fall from pasture to a sliver of sand edging the endless blackness she was told was the Deridian Sea. It stretched further than Kendall could see, and she was unable to resist standing close to the edge of the proper, solid world, drawn and repelled by the mass of water.
Right now, she was betting the Sentene wished they were anywhere else, as Rennyn Claire walked straight up to the cliff's edge and, after the briefest pause, right over it.
"Barin," said Lieutenant Meniar. "Go up to that farmhouse and ask them about tides. Everything about tides."
"Yessir," said one of the Ferumguard, sounding just about as pleased as Meniar. Kendall watched her supposed teacher walk from the narrow beach to ten feet out over the water, then stop. She glanced back at the beach and with a gesture brought a man-sized boulder flying toward her. It sank into the dark water beneath her feet.
As Rennyn floated herself back to the top of the cliff one of the Captains ordered most of the crowd to setting up camp, leaving only a small group to stand about being dismayed.
"You did say something about Sentene mages and trying situations," Kendall muttered to Sukata, and then scooted herself in at the back to listen to the senior Hand mages yak on about whether their clever shields would work under water.
Captain Illuma turned to Rennyn when she set herself down beside Kendall. "Can you delay entering the Eferum until this is settled, Lady Montjuste-Surclere? We may need your advice."
"I'll be delaying entering the Eferum until the last moment anyway," was the response. "Since it seems I can't reliably conceal myself, it's the simplest way to limit my exposure." She glanced restively down at the waves. "The cliff top should be within range, so I'll set my circle up here, too."
"This is a situation we've not encountered before, My Lady," said one of the Hand mages, a twittery, dark-skinned woman who was a good deal sharper than she made out. "We are aware that natural breaches open over water, of course, but given the difficulty of studying them, we have little information."
"Mm. The water's about ten feet deep where I put that rock, and the bottom drops sharply." Rennyn's attention had drifted back to the waves with a touch of the same fascination Kendall felt. "I'd abandon any idea of that shield," she continued after a moment. "If you hadn't already. There's too much confluence between deep water and the Eferum, which is why I need to keep my circle at a distance. This breach will be very large, its strength enhanced by the environment, and will form at the surface, wherever the surface happens to be. Still, few Eferum-Get do very well in water, so if there
is another horde, some of them may drown."
"We should look at nets," Captain Illuma said. "Reinforced and cast over the area to drag them under. Use the water to our advantage instead of taking it as an obstacle."
This suggestion produced lots of nodding, and a detachment was sent back to Knifecliff to wangle some nets. Kendall followed Rennyn as, rubbing the back of her neck, she wandered off to the coaches to ferret around in her bags. Kendall had seen her eyes open more than once during the journey, and wondered if there was anyone who could order the woman to go back to bed.
For a group who usually travelled in pairs, the Sentene acted like a well-drilled army. Or perhaps it was mainly the Ferumguard, whose normal role was keeping villagers out of the way and searching out any remaining traces after a Sentene pair had taken care of whatever thing had been ravaging the countryside. In any case, they had a small town's worth of tents erected in little clusters, food cooking, the horses rubbed down, and the local farmer soothed, all before Rennyn had finished dissecting her luggage. A handful of mages were busy constructing two temporary circles to keep out stray Night Roamers – those that were stupid enough to come anywhere near a Sentene camp.
At least the meal, a salty mix of buttered grains and vegetables, made Rennyn look a bit more alive, to the point where, sitting in front of one of the tent clusters as the afternoon started thinking about twilight, she turned her attention on Kendall and Sukata.
"So, tell me what you know about magic."
"Aren't you supposed to tell us?" Kendall retorted.
"It helps to know where to start. You know the differences between the three so-called spheres of magic?"
"Force, Sigillic and Symbolic," Kendall said, reluctant because there were at least half a dozen people unashamedly eavesdropping. "Sebastian found me a book which explained a bit. Far as I can tell, Clumsy, Complicated and Scary magic."
"You're not far off," Rennyn said, laughing. "Though that's more the usual outcome than the sphere itself. Casting is just a mage trying to tell Efera to do something, but you have a choice of approach. How have you been going with the exercise Seb set you?"
Hunching her shoulders, Kendall glowered at the small wooden bowl she'd recently set down. It jerked to one side. "It goes everywhere but up," she muttered.
"And you, Sukata?" Rennyn asked. "The first step of Thought magic – to lift and hold steady a light object."
"The Teremic approach–" Sukata began.
"Goes on interminably about the relative uselessness of what they like to call Force Magic, and counsels those who would use it be well-grounded in Sigillic before attempting anything. You're a couple of years off summoning your first focus, I presume?"
"Yes."
"Can you lift up that bowl?"
"I–" With more than a hint of reluctance Sukata turned her eyes on the bowl, but it didn't do anything and she shook her head.
"What about you Lieutenant Meniar?"
Meniar stopped pretending to be busy watching for attackers. "Ah...I'd better not."
"The Teremic approach is like putting off learning to walk or talk until you're twenty or so – an excellent way of discouraging you from starting. Because you've no magical strength yet, Kendall, there's a limit to how much damage you can wreak while you're trying to find out how to order your thoughts. Lieutenant Meniar has apparently reached the point where he thinks he might kill someone if he tries."
Kendall was astonished. All this time watching pebbles hop about, she'd thought she mustn't be particularly talented at magecraft. "But – they can cast – why is it possible for them to cast at all if they can't do that?"
"'Thought magic'. Telling Efera what you want simply by thinking it. It's an exercise of will and mental discipline. Sigillic magic puts a buffer between the Efera and your thoughts, and uses an entirely different 'muscle' – as if you were using your arms instead of your legs, for instance." Rennyn searched about in her pockets and produced a small wooden box containing sticks of chalk. Calling the bowl to her with a gesture, she wrote a bunch of sigils on the curving wood, then pushed power into them until the bowl rose a short way into the air and stayed there. "Although mages usually think or even speak the name of the sigils as they power them, they're not making any attempt to do anything with Efera except run it through the shape of the sigil. Whatever they've written shapes the result of the casting. Complicated is a good description, since, because the casting is at one remove from the caster, factors such as duration need to be taken into account. You'll see few good Sigillics which don't have some limit or cut-off mechanism – a word or a phrase. But that's the structure of the casting. The act is the same whatever the spell: push power to the sigils and let the sigils form the outcome."
"It's easier to make the sigils do things than it is to hold up a rock? Sigillic magic is the easy kind?"
"During the activation. It's the safest method, and allows even those with no particular mental discipline to cast. More importantly, it allows the creation of spells which are really beyond the ability to compass in a 'single' thought, and can be used for castings which persist after the user has stopped thinking about it, or even putting power into it. Thought magic takes a good deal more effort to produce the same outcome, and usually only basic outcomes can be achieved. Picking up a rock."
"Are the sigils magic themselves?"
In answer, Rennyn released the bowl, cleaned it off and then wrote on it again, this time in neatly printed Tyrian script. Again she pushed power into it and again it obediently lifted a couple of feet off the ground and sat there.
"Efanian, the language of magic, reaches well back into the beginnings of structured magic. The Wizard Corela, one of the early great practitioners, invented it, although it has naturally been constantly refined. The sigils were designed to allow each symbol to be a single word, and the language attempts to remove all ambiguity, so there are no homonyms – no words that can mean more than one thing. Think, for instance of telling Efera 'to make something light', 'to light a fire', 'to conjure light'."
"How would you make it float with Symbolic magic?"
"Mm. Not the most appropriate candidate for Symbolic casting. Make a soap bubble, perhaps, and then use either Thought or Sigillic magic to suggest that the bowl is like a soap bubble. Symbolic magic takes advantage of characteristics of objects and concepts to transfer those characteristics to the subject of your casting. The problem is a symbol is often worse than a homonym – the colour red can symbolise anger, passion, blood, romance, death, or indeed anything the caster thinks it means. Some argue that even things that the caster doesn't know it means matter in Symbolic. With a soap bubble, the bowl would probably float, but since I consider a soap bubble a symbol of the ephemeral, it might also pop out of existence when I next touched it. To cast Symbolic magic, there must first be a sense of...rightness, of surety over what symbols you have chosen and the result they will bring. In a way you have to dominate the outcome, by being certain in yourself what your symbols mean. Otherwise you could end up with almost anything. Scary magic, as you say."
"What kind of magic do you mostly use?"
"Mostly? The best casting is usually a combination. What do you think circles are? A symbol of perfection, of a cycle, of a line not to be crossed which has no end."
Kendall was fascinated, enjoying this explanation far more than she'd expected, not least because: "You're saying that almost everyone learns magic the wrong way round."
"Not precisely. The Teremic Approach would be appropriate – a necessity – for people who don't have a great deal of strength of mind. Advanced Thought casting is absolutely more dangerous than anything except perhaps Symbolic, and I would not recommend any move past the simple exercise Seb gave you unless precise control is gained. But if you don't start with it, you're unlikely to ever use it. The stronger you become the more damage you'll be able to do."
"So what can't you do with magic?"
"In theory, nothing. In practice, you are of
course limited by your ability to convey your intention, and your strength. Understanding exactly what you're trying to do is fundamental. I, for instance, probably wouldn't have done very well getting that poison out of Seb. To be a good healing mage, you need to understand how people work, and my studies have focused on the Eferum and divinations, not blood and bile and flesh.
"Size and distance also limit you. The further you try and send a message by magic, the less likely it is to arrive. Think of the difference between looking into the next room, and looking into a room on the far side of the country. Scrying is one of those things all the legends show the great mages doing, but no-one knows how they structured the spell. It seems a simple thing doesn't it? One of Tiandel's sons spent a great deal of time trying to work out a way to scry over distance, and when he finally succeeded the casting took all his energy and killed him."
"But he succeeded?" Lieutenant Meniar took a step forward eagerly. "A functioning distance scry? Truly?"
His excited advance brought a shutter down over Rennyn's face, but then she shrugged and plucked the still-floating bowl out of the air. "Yes and no. It's technically functional, but even I'm not powerful enough to cast it." She handed the bowl to Kendall. "Distance is a huge limitation, but choosing to learn only Sigillic is merely a self-imposed constraint. It's up to you two whether you attempt Thought casting exercises or not. It's not necessary to becoming a Sigillic mage."
"What about being a 'real' mage?"
Rennyn Claire paused, turning her head toward the darkening horizon and the line where the grass stopped and the sky began. "The question would be whether you can truly understand magic if you ignore all but one of the ways of performing it. And that's all Seb means by real mages – people who understand magic, and have the full set of tools to manipulate it."