by Philip Blood
I shrugged, and said, “Sure, you could burn it, or cut it, or carve it, or break it, for starters.”
“So there are many ways to rearrange the reality of this object?” he asked.
I nodded slowly.
“And why do these atoms hold this shape, if you don’t try to change them?”
“Well, there are bonds.”
“Right, so if another energy acted upon these atoms, changing those bonds, they could rearrange into new things, new shapes?”
“Absolutely,” I agreed.
“When a mage knows something is true they supply the energy to rearrange those atoms, form new molecules, create different bonds,” he said. “The energy to do this comes from the mage.”
“OK, that makes sense, of sorts,” I agreed. “But then you are changing something into something else.”
“Yes, sort of, but what we’re talking about is the mechanism which allows you to do so, and that mechanism is your belief in a different reality. You know things can be another way, matter can be other matter, so, if you believe this can happen, why not believe you, as a mage, can KNOW something is a certain way, and find this is the way it is? Belief supplies the energy for things to be a specific way.”
I considered what he’d said, and when thought about that way, it wasn’t exactly magic, and for some reason, this made it all more believable to me.
“Close your eyes,” he instructed, which I did. Then he said, “Put out your hand, and I will place a small pebble on it.”
I felt him place the rock on my palm.
“Close your hand slowly, and as you do, before you actually feel the stone, imagine what it must look like, you’ve seen the rocks around here, so you know what it must be.”
So, I imagined the stone and closed my fist, when it finally touched the stone I felt the rounded cold shape, just as I knew I would.
“Open your eyes, and your hand,” Toji humbly instructed.
I did so, and the stone was in my palm, just as I’d pictured it.
“So what, it’s a rock,” I noted sourly.
“When I placed it on your hand, it was a clump of dirt which I broke off of this clod,” and here he lifted his own hand, and showed me the original clump, and where he had broken off some dirt.
“You’re shitting me,” I exclaimed.
“It is a rock, not dung,” he answered, “but it will be excrement if you believe it is”
I looked at the rock and it was as hard and real as any rock I’d ever seen.
Toji took the small rock from me, and then said, “Close your eyes again.”
When I had done so, Toji said, “I’m going to place another clump of dirt on your hand, I want you to imagine it is a stone.”
“OK,” I said.
I felt him place the dirt clod on my palm, and after a moment, he said, “Open your eyes.”
I did and found a dirt clod on my palm.
“It didn’t work,” I said with a wry smile.
“On the contrary, you made it what you wished. I didn’t place a dirt clod on your hand, this time, see?” he said showing the clump of dirt he had in his other hand, which was unchanged. “I put back the stone you had earlier, and then told you to think of this ‘dirt clod’ as a stone. But, you now knew you held a dirt clod, so you changed the stone to dirt because that is what you truly believed it was.”
“Crap, that can’t be true!” I exclaimed.
“I watched it turn from a stone back to dirt,” Hydan said, from his reclined position. “You’re a wizard all right, just one who doesn’t believe in what he can do.”
I looked at the dirt clod in my hand.
“That isn’t dirt,” Toji said softly. “It’s a bunch of atoms which are arranged to make dirt. If you believe in a different arrangement, it could be a stone.”
I stared at the dirt for five minutes trying to make it into a stone, but it remained dirt.
Toji was patient, “You can’t make dirt into a stone; you just have to know it is a stone.”
I looked up at him, and said, “Well, I do know it was a stone.”
“Really, it was?” he asked with a small smile.
“Yes, I remember what it looked like exactly,” I noted.
“Look down, Master Justnick,” he said softly.
I did, and the stone was back on my palm.
“Believe what you wish about what is around you, and it will be what you know is there.”
I nodded and started practicing.
The other two lay down on the grass, which became bed rolls, and left me to contemplate my pet rock. I was quite cold and getting a little frustrated, but two hours later I finally got it, and as I lay down a bedroll was under me, just like I knew it would be. I instantly fell asleep.
In the morning, I rolled over and yawned. Toji was cooking something savory smelling over the camp fire. “Hey, why do mages sleep, or eat, for that matter?” I asked.
Toji humbly explained, “Because this is a physical universe we live in, with rules and laws, and one of those laws is everything comes from something else. You cannot change something to nothing, or nothing to something.”
“Conservation of energy,” I said, “The first law of thermodynamics.”
Toji shrugged, “Whatever name or description you put on the rule doesn’t change the universal truth of the rule. You may call it what you wish, but it is always true.”
I nodded.
He continued, “For example, the power we use to bend reality to our belief requires a use of energy and the expended power must be recovered if you would use it again. We recover, or convert the energy, from somewhere else, and sometimes this is by consuming food. Resting can also help.”
“What are you converting when you rest?” I asked.
“Nothing, but rest can help you speed up the return of your lost energy. You don’t have to rest, but while you do so your body is using less energy, which lets your reserves replenish faster from converting other energy sources, like, food, sunlight, etc. One thing to note, different races use different means of replenishing energy, in fact, these saerans can gain a lot back by entering water. There are nutrients they absorb through their skin,” Toji patiently explained.
Most of what he had said made an odd kind of sense, so I accepted him at his word.
Then I said, “But, if you convert grass or whatever, into meat, doesn’t it break the conservation of energy idea? It cost you energy to change it, so aren’t you just now replenishing what you used, not gaining anything when you eat the food?”
He shrugged, “That would be true if the amount of energy it cost me to convert the grass was equal to what I gain from consuming this food, which it isn’t. The energy in this food far exceeds what it cost me to see it as something else.”
“Ah, OK,” I said. “So why not just eat the grass?”
“Because it tastes like gowaar droppings,” Hydan noted with a laugh.
I glanced over at the four bedrolls on the grass. “Should we change reality back so these bedrolls become grass again?”
Toji answered patiently, “You could, but this would cost you some energy. It is simpler to leave them in their current reality, besides, someone else could come along and use them later.”
“Or, we could take them with us,” I noted, “So we don’t have to believe in new ones tonight.”
“That would make sense if we knew we would need them,” he agreed, “though we will likely reach a settlement sometime today.”
Hydan suddenly spoke with low caution, “Quickly, get rid of everything! Something comes!”
At his tone the other two mages didn’t ask questions, in moments, the bedrolls, the fire, the food, everything, was back to a simple grass meadow in the forest.
“Into the trees!” Hydan said, leading the way.
We followed and were just into concealment when I heard the sound of animal snorts and a heavy pounding which could be felt through the ground.
Then, from around the ben
d, sixteen three-legged beasts came into view, each about the size of a water buffalo. They had hide which was almost plated armor, like a shiny rhino skin. Their single foreleg was thicker than their two rear legs, and they would plant it, and then lift their two rear legs together, pulling them forward and past their thicker front leg. Then they would bring them down hard, striking the ground. The large muscles of the hind legs would then propel the creature forward, while the single front leg bent back at a joint, before reaching out forward again to start the cycle of the three-legged gait over again.
There were saddles on the creatures, and perched upon them were darkly cowled humanoid creatures. They had the scaled skin of the saeran race, though, where I could see it on their exposed hands, it was mottled and missing scales in patches. It was as if the flesh underneath had dried and rotted away, giving them an emaciated dead fish look. I could only see their hands, the dark cowls kept their features obscured from the sun.
They slowed as they came near our recent camp, and it was almost as if they were sniffing the air, though there were no sounds from within their hoods.
“What are those?” I whispered to Toji, who was crouched to my left.
“Be very quiet,” he barely breathed to me, “Those are necromages, the ones I told you about. They are Morgain’s deadliest creations. I have never seen more than three together before, but if that many find us at once…”
He didn’t have to finish his statement; the rest was obvious from his worried expression.
The three-legged mounts milled around, guided by their skeletal handed masters, then one called out in a high-pitched screech and the whole herd of them picked up to a gallop again and were off down the road.
I turned, and saw Hydan concentrating heavily, but a moment later he relaxed and said, “Those things were STRONG!” he exclaimed, “I could feel their sense sniffing around the edge of the glamour I had created to conceal our power from them.” Then he looked at me and added, “You can sense a mage’s power if they are that close.”
Toji looked concerned as he said, “It only took one of those necromages to control those three golems which were after me yesterday. What is Morgain doing sending sixteen of her most valuable assets down this road, on this day? That cannot be a coincidence.”
“They are after us,” I said, without knowing how I knew.
Toji looked at me, and then at Myrka, “I have not yet been a big enough thorn to make Morgain come after me with that much effort, what of you, Tarvos?”
Myrka shrugged, “This is my first trip to Abal; nor have I had past dealings with this Morgain.”
I nodded, and added to her statement, “Nor have I.”
Hydan looked a little apologetic. “Well, I have, and I may have pissed off the evil bitch, a little, the last time I was here. But who would have thought she would hold such a grudge?”
“Is this the same sorceress who has been taking revenge on all the mages on this world for the past thousand years?” Toji asked him.
“Point taken, maybe Morgain would hold a grudge,” Hydan said with a wan smile.
I frowned, “What is the difference, if any, between a necromancer, and a necromage?”
Toji answered, “Everything! A Necromancer is a living mage who uses the Derkaz to summon souls and bind them to a corpse so they will do their bidding.”
“OK,” I said, "and these necromages?”
Toji continued, “Well, as far as we can discern, they are like necrosouls, but they are the souls of a mage put into a dead body, with their own powers as a mage intact. Though they are bound to the will of the necromancer, they can function without the direct control of their necromancer.”
Hydan spoke, “What we need to find out is how they are being made!”
Toji answered, “Morgain, or her husband, Medrod, figured out how to create them, and Morgain is using them to win the Civil War here on Abal. My House is very interested in finding out how they are created. Anything which breaks the status quo is of great concern to us.”
Hydan agreed, “And to all Houses.”
Toji nodded resolutely, “That was part of my quest, to discover this secret.”
I considered this, “If she is that much of a threat, why haven’t the other Houses sent more powerful mages to take her out; no offense, Toji.”
He bowed, “None taken. I was not sent by my House; I chose this as my honor quest. I believe my Archimage is waiting to see if Morgain will show the will, or desire, to strike beyond her revenge on House Sivaeral.”
I smiled grimly, “Ah, and so, he…”
Toji interrupted, “She, my Archimage is Nüwa.”
“…OK, ‘she’,” I amended, “is letting Morgain weaken the Sivaeral mages, and leaving her alone as long as she doesn’t threaten her interests off this world,” I surmised.
Toji bowed slightly to acknowledge his agreement with my thoughts, but added, “However, I believe my Archimage would not be unhappy, at this stage, to see Morgain come to an end. All of the Archimages are likely growing concerned at the fall of Abal to a Second.”
I puzzled over this for a moment, “Then why not put a stop to her? As you said, she is only a Second.”
Hydan laughed, “Only a Second? Second does not mean second-rate. A Second is the penultimate mage, and though it would be difficult, they are capable, in the right circumstances, of ending an Archimage and their entire line. When this is done, there will never be another mage of that House, so trust me when I tell you a Second is powerful indeed. Let me give you an example, I studied a game played on Earth, called Chess.”
“I’m familiar with it,” I replied.
He nodded, “The most important piece is the King, for if that falls you lose the game, but the second most important piece is the Queen. Think of the King as a First, and the Queen as a Second. The problem with being an Archimage is, like that King piece, your movements are restricted, for if you fall into enemy hands, or are killed, your entire line dies, and your world is without your protection and influence. On the other hand, a Second, though nearly as powerful, can move freely, leaving the Archimage to protect their world.”
I shrugged, “But from what you tell me, Seconds are not as powerful as a First, and aren’t there like ten Archimages?”
Hydan nodded, “Eight currently left in the Ring of Ten, and one who was cast out. But this isn’t as simple as a duel between a Second and a First; Morgain has gathered an army, and she has backed that with powers and new magic she has discovered through the Derkaz. You’ll notice the Archimage of Sivaeral has not been able to stop her here on Abal, at least not yet.”
“Why do you think the Archimage hasn’t dealt with this upstart necromancer, Second or not? She can’t kill him, or she would be killing herself, right? She’s a descendant of this Archimage, in his line,” I noted.
Hydan was very solemn, which was odd for him, as he answered, “Actually, no, she is a Dokkalfar sorceress,” he corrected. “If she can kill the Sivaeral Archimage she will end all Sivaeral mages, forever.”
“Dokkalfar, but then why is she here, on Abal?”
“Now that her Sivaeral husband is dead, she is, no doubt, here to end the Sivaeral line and destroy Abal. However, originally she came here for another reason,” Hydan explained, “As I have mentioned, Morgain Dokkalfar was the mate of Medrod, the Sivaeral Archimage’s son. When his father found out about this union he forbade his son from being with the Dokkalfar sorceress. He couldn’t risk a crossbreed bastard being born, and an alliance with the Dokkalfar is insane on any grounds.”
I was puzzled by his statement, “Why is that?”
“Let’s just say they want to end all mage lines, and leave it at that.”
“Oh,” I said, “Except their own?”
“Even their own, though they plan to go last.”
“Crap, some kind of suicidal race?” I noted.
He shrugged, “Something like that.”
I laughed, “I bet that was one of those, ‘Loo
k who I brought home for dinner, dad’ moments.”
Hydan nodded, and then continued, “But Medrod refused to end things with Morgain, and this started a battle. In the end, it is said the Archimage had to take a direct hand, for Morgain and Medrod, as two Seconds, were a formidable power. With no other alternative, the Archimage had to slay his son.”
I whistled, “So that’s what has Morgain’s wig in a snarl, the Archimage killed her true love.”
Hydan nodded, but added, “If a Dokkalfar mage can love anyone.”
“Doesn’t it seem extreme for a father to kill his son because he is dating a girl from the other side of the tracks?” I asked.
“I assume your colloquialism means a sorceress from another House. Medrod and Morgain were both Seconds but from different Houses. The Sivaeral Archimage had to stop his son and the Dokkalfar sorceress from breeding and creating a bastard crossbreed Second. Unions between mages of separate Houses is allowed, simply because any child born of such a union is considered a member of the House of the higher Tier parent. However, unions between two mages of the same Tier and from the same House is forbidden. A child born from such a union is called a Bastard. They are hunted by members of other Houses.”
This was all so strange, and I asked, “Why are they hunted?”
“Because they are considered outcasts, their parents broke the Archimage accords. A child born from such a union is absolutely taboo. This stems from the fact that if two Archimages should breed, it would create a new Archimage Crossbreed Bastard, which is deemed to be against the Silent Mother’s plan.”
I pondered this, “And so the Sivaeral Archimage killed his son rather than have them create one of these Crossbreed Bastards, and that happened about a thousand years ago?”
“Yes, this Civil War has been going on for a long time now,” he agreed.
“But, is it really a Civil War now, since the leader of the enemy is a Dokkalfar sorceress?” I asked.
“Good point but Medrod started it, and he recruited a lot of Sivaeral mages by showing them the ways of the Derkaz. Nowadays, most of her army are Sivaeral mages and they have added these newly discovered necromages. Both are using the Derkaz against what is left of the Sivaeral mages using their natural magic,” Hydan explained.