“Amateurs,” Jannik dismissed, as he strummed a discordant chord.
After the matters of administration were dispensed with, it was time for a lunch appointment with my new arcanist, Heeth. This was only my third-such discussion with the man since I hired him, as I’d had various conferences, clandestine meetings, interrogations, plans and plots to conduct, but I liked to check in with Heeth every week or so. Not just to hear what his research had revealed, but to keep him informed of what I knew. He, among only a very few, was cleared to hear the details of my most secret discoveries.
Indeed, that earned me a look from Brother Bryte, who had originally counselled me to be wary of telling too many secrets to too many people when Heeth first took my service. But he seemed even more concerned about Jannik’s presence. I dismissed his concerns with a silent look of my own.
Brother Bryte couldn’t communicate mind-to-mind, but he is nearly as subtle as a wizard. With a small sigh he accepted my decision to include Jannik in my secret counsels, despite his silent objection. I was his boss. It was my job to screw things up, after all.
Heeth transported himself through the Ways right on time, coming out through the Waypoint I’d installed for that purpose directly into my chambers. He grinned, after suppressing his nausea – he still found the means of travel novel. He bowed respectfully to me and both men before taking a seat. Ruderal fetched us wine as I filled him in on a number of developments . . . including the interrogation of Khudoz, the proposed advances of Shakathet, the situation with Anvaram, the discovery of the death of magic in the world, and the comparative differences between the Alka Alon colonization and humanity’s own.
Heeth and I spoke casually of such things, and it became increasingly apparent that Jannik was surprised, shocked and even skeptical of some of the matters we discussed. This wasn’t idle gossip of Iron Peg’s secrets, these were matters of history and lore, largely outside of his knowledge. Discussing how irritated I was with the vaunted Alka Alon Council, or how depressed I was about something that wouldn’t happen for three millennia, seemed to bewilder the minstrel.
As for Heeth’s part, he had been busy. Heeth had taken his new task as my arcanist with a particular passion. Flitting between the Enchanter’s Quarter and the Thaumaturge’s Quarter, Sevendor, the Tower of Sorcery and even the Citadel of Wenshar, Heeth had begun to gather a substantial store of lore for the shelves of the Arcanium.
Not all of it was magical in nature – indeed, most of it was natural history and obscure religious texts entirely unrelated to magic, as such. But once I’d outlined the expectations of the various projects, Heeth seemed to know which text needed to be acquired, either as an original or a copy, and where to find it.
He wasn’t quite a librarian; he was far more purposeful in his acquisitions, and he made a point to read many of them, personally. He’d quickly hired a staff of researchers to delve more deeply and completely into particular works, but he made a point to be aware of the progress of their research through regular consultation.
It was a daunting task; I’d given him the mission to unravel the tangled fabric of our imperfectly recorded history and sift out a few important details . . . and then provide enough historic context to understand those details. It didn’t help that I had no clear idea what, exactly, he was looking for. Something about the Forsaken? The Vundel? The Alka Alon? Lost Perwyn? The lands beyond the Shallow Sea? I wanted it all, properly prepared and seasoned with context to make it palatable.
Gods forbid someone ask him about the details of his work – Heeth was eager to share the minutia of his searching, from the minor triumphs in acquiring some obscure monk’s theological ruminations on the stars to his failure to determine the importance of the cargo manifests from the last voyages from Perwyn. He’d not only expound on the material without pausing for breath, but would also relate, in equal detail, the method of his acquisition and the characters he’d encountered in doing so.
Meetings with Heeth often took a long time.
I’d quickly impressed upon him the importance of my time, and he didn’t take it personally – he was able to be succinct, at need. I understood that attention to detail was the particular talent of an arcanist, but Heeth also understood my role as his patron. I had questions and I needed answers. I didn’t need to know how he got them. If I had questions, I asked.
Nor did I discourage him chasing down some unlikely avenues of research, as expensive as it was. He’d spent three days prowling the libraries of Castabriel’s Temple District, and he even traveled to a temple beyond the city’s walls, in search of a reference of a reference he suspected might – might! – direct him toward an early account of a legendary series of voyages in the Late Magocracy that may or may not have ever happened. I trusted his judgement – I had to – but I also kept watch on where his judgement might lead.
We had organized his endeavors into three broad categories: the Vundel, the Forsaken and Snowstone. There were other portfolios he pursued, but those three were of prime importance and took up most of his energies. If a professional arcanist seeks the occult and obscure, I had handed him three of the most hidden challenges in history.
Despite Briga’s urging, I did not expect Heeth’s efforts to bear fruit quickly. I knew as a fact that there was little in the records and archives about the first two projects, and the Thaumaturgists’ Guild had proven that very little existed about snowstone and its effects before I had produced it. It wasn’t quite a hopeless quest, but it would do until a real one came by.
But that’s why I had an arcanist. Despite the difficulty of the task, Heeth’s enthusiastic pursuit began to produce some small results, and some good leads toward other resources. He had found a detailed account of the Vundel’s legendary history in the annals of the Tower of Sorcery, supposedly written during the Colonization. Some of the information was intriguing, once you figured out what the Old Perwynese was actually saying. Was it directly helpful? I didn’t know.
“On the matter of the Forsaken,” he continued, enthusiastically, “there is no doubt that when the ancient accounts are read with the knowledge of the true nature of the New Horizon, it gives one a far different understanding of the account. Passages that have long been obscure suddenly make sense.
“For example, this one from the Chronicles of Perwyn states ‘the might of the Horizon was uncontested; the captains of the sky dwelt vigilantly there, and by employing Calsat as their eyes, oversaw the peace of Perwyn against the dangers of Callidore for generations.’ We’ve always taken this as allegory,” he explained. “After all, the great eagle of Orvatas saw all, according to legend, and it was assumed that these ‘captains of the skies’ were his lieutenants, servants, or minions in his palace at the Horizon. Orvatas isn’t even mentioned in the chronicles until eighty years after the Inundation.”
“But if the Horizon was a sky ship and not a mythical palace,” I reasoned, “and Calsat was a . . . a series of Wizard Eyes, instead of a giant supernatural eagle, then it does show us something about the history: that our ancestors continued to guard us from the skies for years after the colonization of Perwyn.”
“Oh, more than that,” Heeth agreed, pulling a scroll from his bundle. “Later in the chronicle there’s an entire passage detailing the might of the Captains of the Sky: they had ships of the air, great engines of war that could lay waste to the entire countryside, if I read this correctly. There was a kind of army or at least a force of warriors that watched from the Horizon. The account says that they were on guard against a possible struggle with the Alon, or a betrayal of the Vundel.”
“They thought they could contend with the Vundel?” I asked, surprised.
“Are they not more powerful than the Alka Alon, from what you have told me?” Brother Bryte asked, confused.
“Many times as powerful,” I agreed, gravely. “I wouldn’t think our ancestors, despite their tekka, would have the means to threaten them.”
“It was a matter that was appar
ently discussed,” Heeth assured. “Perhaps their weapons were not enough to conquer the Sea Folk, but they were confident in their ability to attack and cause them some harm. But they were also wary of the consequences of challenging such a power.”
“How could they possibly challenge the Vundel?” I asked, skeptically.
“They were possessed of some great forces, powerful enough for them to cross the Void,” Heeth reminded me. “Their intelligences were constantly watching for any signs of danger. But it seems that they were reluctant to consider striking, despite their supposedly war-like nature. It was understood as a suicidal endeavor, only to be considered in the direst of emergencies. The same with the Alka Alon,” he continued, scanning his notes. “A conflict with them was considered more likely, and therefore more prepared for by the Coldef Captains, as they were known.”
“Short for ‘colonial defense’,” I supplied. “Forseti explained that to me. The armed force that was pledged to protect our ancestors. There was a base of them at Novaminos, if I recall correctly. One of the last places evacuated during the Inundation.”
“Yes, ‘and the Coldef Captain of Novaminos withdrew his men from the affairs of the Empire, and sought a kingdom in the east’,” Heeth quoted from memory. “Indeed, the Captain of Novaminos was the first to advocate to recall the Forsaken,” he pointed out. “When the Magelords of Perwyn declined, he withdrew his navy and said he would seek to recall them on his own.”
“He didn’t,” I pointed out. “Why not?”
“That’s a good question,” Heeth admitted, scribbling a note on his scroll. “History doesn’t record it, to my knowledge. Perhaps he was overcome by a storm? That seems to happen a lot to navies in the Shallow Sea.”
“I was under the impression he founded some kingdom beyond the sea to the east,” I suggested. “We know precious little about those places. They’re hard to get to, apparently.”
“You have to cross the Great Reefs, and the Vundel don’t like mariners doing it much . . . which is why it’s both dangerous and lucrative,” he admitted. “But it’s assumed from the texts that only the Captain of Novaminos and the king of Unstara had the power to recall the Forsaken, after their exile.”
“Both on the other side of the sea,” I shrugged. “That’s not terribly helpful.”
“Oh, you never know,” Heeth countered, looking up sharply. “Sometimes some obscure tidbit of information can lead to all sorts of interesting things. I’ll keep exploring and keep you informed. The good news involves the Snowstone project from the Thaumaturgy Institute,” he continued, as he rolled up the scroll and put it away. “Master Theronial and his cenacle have a working theory about the underlying mechanism of the transformation. The bad news is that it’s a quantum matter,” he said, frowning.
“Quantum?” asked Jannik, noting the importance of the word. Brother Bryte also looked curious, and a bit grateful that the minstrel had asked the question.
“When you examine the world with magesight,” Heeth explained, “it tends to work along one set of rules. Until you look at things so small that those rules no longer apply, anymore. Another set of rules applies, a much different and stranger set of rules.”
“At the very smallest scale, it’s as if you enter a new universe,” I agreed, solemnly. “One that is damnably hard to fathom, even with the knowledge magic grants you. Unfortunately, at its most basic level, that is where magic dwells.”
Heeth eagerly took the opportunity to expound on this difficult to understand part of thaumaturgy. I had to admit, he did better than my instructor at the academy had done.
“The magical effects that you see with your eyes and other senses are the result of arcane forces, directed by consciousness, acting at these levels, you see, behaving in utterly incomprehensible ways, governed by rules of nature that are only barely understood by the wisest of us,” he explained. “The simplest magelight,” he said, producing one eagerly, the way all wizards behave after they’ve received their witchstone, “is a simple spell, but it requires a conscious flow of directed arcane power through a quantum mechanism that we don’t understand – we just know how to use it,” he said, extinguishing the light.
Jannik frowned and rubbed his chin in contemplation. “So . . . you use magic, but you don’t understand how it works?”
“You eat eggs, but you don’t know a chicken works,” considered Brother Bryte. “Most laymen don’t understand how the law works, or judicial process, but they still utilize it,” he proposed.
I made a face. “Perhaps that’s an oversimplification of the metaphor. Like most phenomenon in the universe, we observe, theorize, and then test those theories through experimentation,” I tried to explain. “That’s the very basis for all science, including thaumaturgy.
“But with the quantum realm, where the essential forces of nature control all of the universe, the presence of the observer, himself, affects the outcome and direction of forces. As does the inclination of the observer, some experiments suggest. And a number of other theories.”
“Yes, quantum-level thaumaturgy is dependent upon the role of the observer, in some cases, as well as their intent,” Heeth agreed. “Multiple observers of the same phenomenon can further alter the outcome. Thankfully, that usually happens in fairly predictable ways, but not always.”
“So . . . you’re saying . . . that magic flows through the quantum universe one way, when no one is looking . . . but as soon as you begin to look, it behaves differently?” Jannik asked, confused. “That doesn’t make any sense!”
“Now you have mastered the subtle essence of quantum thaumaturgy,” I agreed, dryly. “And why madness can be an occupational hazard for my profession. We may not understand it, any more than a mariner understands why the ocean is down and the sky is up, but like that mariner we can use what we do know about it to achieve the desired effect.”
“All this is terribly fascinating conjecture, my lords,” Brother Bryte lied unconvincingly, “but I don’t see how it affects our plans. Unless I’m not supposed to see it, because that would alter it,” he quipped.
“If Master Theronial’s Thaumaturgy cenacle has a working theory on snowstone creation, it is,” I assured him. “That’s one of my more immediate concerns. You have the details?” I asked my arcanist, eagerly.
“Of course – Taren knew you’d want the specifics, so he drew up a report,” Heeth agreed, taking a thick scroll out of his satchel. “A very technical report,” he added, as he glanced at the two laymen in the room.
“We’ll just be over here playing with our instruments,” Jannik assured us, with a sigh. “Don’t mind us witless peasants.” Brother Bryte nodded sympathetically, and then poured them each another glass of wine. Then Heeth presented me with the most technically advanced thaumaturgical paper I had ever read.
The thaumaturgical college had cobbled together several existing theories about quantum-level magic, I saw, a few of them quite obscure – but then that field of study was obscure by nature. Reducing reality to the interplay of matter, energy, consciousness and perception in a meaningful way required a special set of symbology, one I was only mildly familiar with. The concepts involved made other spellwork seem elementary and derivative, by comparison, and several times I had to stop and recall a reference to remember just what in six hells a particular symbol meant.
Few thaumaturges are comfortable with the arcane nature of the quantum world. Perhaps the brightest of them was Arnot of Merwyn, whose patron was Archmage Randal I, about five hundred years ago. He’s the one who standardized the symbolic notation for the study, which is why it’s called Arnotic notation. It is interesting to note that Arnot ended his career at the end of a rope after going mad and hanging himself.
But the symbols he’d left behind allowed his followers to at least talk about the strange effects and relationships between elements and forces in the quantum realm, and that was useful. That was important, as the quantum realm was in fact responsible for many arcane effects,
from the magelight Heeth had conjured to the Sympathy Stones that comprised the magical Mirror array that was increasingly filling my days with parchment work. We didn’t understand much about it, but like the symbols that described it, it was useful.
Taren’s elegant explanation of their theory incorporated a lot of important elements, including divine magical force, elemental magical force, etheric density, dimensional instability due to lensing effects, three different types of intensive purpose (a particularly difficult sort of thing to describe in a few symbols) and no less than seven impressive formulas that may – or may not – describe the method of action for reaching the production of snowstone.
Heeth and I discussed it for most of an hour. It was an elegant general theory, backed up by the sinister experiments of Dunselen and Isily, but it had problems. Mostly, the sheer number of unknowns involved. While that’s fairly standard for quantum thaumaturgy, in this case any of those unknown factors could play a role in the outcome. Indeed, some of them had to – otherwise Dunselen would have produced snowstone like I had. As impressive as Taren’s report was, it was not the answer to the problem. It merely suggested a reasonable way to state the problem for further study.
“It would be helpful if we knew more about divine magic, what it does, and how to quantify it,” he concluded, with a sigh.
“It’s progress,” I finally admitted, as my mind tried on each of the seven potential answers. “Tell them to keep at it, I’m encouraged by their results so far,” I instructed Heeth.
“They seemed pretty excited about it,” agreed the arcanist, as he rolled the scroll back up. “They’re working on a series of experimental models, now,” he added. “Taren thinks he can work out the basics of the theory in a standard laboratory, before he will require something more specialized.”
Once Heeth left, Brother Bryte and Jannik rejoined me at the table. “My lord, I have heard many foreign languages,” the minstrel declared. “I have heard plenty of discussions about subjects I knew nothing about. But never have I felt so ignorant as when overhearing your conversation about . . . whatever the hell you were speaking of.”
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