Stained Glass Monsters (21 page)

"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."

There was a little silence, a weirdly
upset pause, and then a shadow between the two tents behind Rennyn
resolved into Captain Faille.

"What time do you wish to be woken, my
Lady?" he asked.

"Midnight, I suppose. Three hours ahead
should be safe enough."

Kendall was impressed that Captain
Faille had managed to give Rennyn an order, just by not giving it
to her. As soon as she had gone into her tent, everyone who had
been lingering about shifted away, some only a short distance to
stand guard and the rest to the busier end of the camp, where the
noise immediately dropped to furious whispers. Kendall, retreating
obediently with Sukata, considered the rearrangement
appreciatively.

"It's like she's got a hundred nannies.
The scariest woman in the kingdom, and they all tiptoe around her
like she's made of glass. She doesn't strike me as fragile."

Sukata didn't respond, heading for the
cliff's edge. She was obviously upset, though Kendall had only
begun to be able to spot the signs. It was in the way she held
herself, and the fact that she wasn't being so proper and correct.
Kendall held off prodding, and peered cautiously down. The water
had moved, the beach growing to half again its width, and the
Sentene had found a way to pick their way down the cliff to the
water, where they were conjuring balls of light.

"Going into the Eferum here is already
risky," Sukata finally said. "Going into the Eferum when obviously
in need of a full day's sleep is courting disaster."

"She probably has nightmares," said
Kendall, who had suffered enough herself in the past few days. "Why
is it so risky going into the Eferum here?"

"The ocean is said to be like the Eferum
– cold and dark and full of currents. When travelling between two
such similar places there's a danger of missing your
direction."

"She didn't seem that worried about it.
Was what she said about Thought magic right? How come people do
this Teremie stuff, if it means you get all messed up? Is it really
that hard to do?"

The Kellian girl sat down on the cliff's
edge, which was more than Kendall was willing to do. "Force magic –
too often children died trying to master it. The accepted wisdom is
that it is simply not worth it. What can it accomplish that a
well-constructed Sigillic cannot? It wears on the caster far more,
and the danger of interruption or lapses of concentration is
considerable. The basis of the Teremic approach is that a dead mage
can't cast any kind of magic, and the speed of something as crude
as Force magic doesn't balance the risk."

"Then why did everyone act like she was
welcoming Fel to dinner? Hearts in boots and trying to put a brave
face on it."

"There – there has been a great deal of
debate over how much of what Lady Montjuste-Surclere does is Force
magic. During the Asentyr incursion she was seen to use highly
advanced Sigillic circles culminating in a Symbolic summoning, but
much of her casting must be either pre-prepared or not Sigillic.
I'm not sure she even carries a slate. She is powerful enough to
maintain a number of pre-cast spells, it is true, but that casting
after the palace incursion–"

"What casting?"

"You remember, an hour or so after
sunset, there was a wash of colour? And then some lights in the
sky?"

"I didn't see the lights."

"It was a casting which altered
Asentyr's main circle so that it would pinpoint any Eferum-Get
within its bounds. And it revealed two, both of them guised as the
larger had been. Spies. Eferum-Get spies." Sukata's voice dropped
with the enormity of this idea, then lifted again. "From what I
have been told, Lady Montjuste-Surclere went to the place the
Eferum-Get attack had been most destructive and set up an 'idea' of
what Eferum-Get are like, and then used that idea to call to her a
Life Stealer to cause a reaction with the shield. During all this
she simply chanted three words which might count as Sigillic magic
except she didn't write them on anything, and the names of sigils
alone do not constrain Efera. Which means that the spell was almost
entirely Symbolic and...Thought."

"So, more than just lifting things."

"How do you describe red to a blind
man?" Sukata asked as she fidgeted with the hem of her smock,
another sign that she was really upset. "Sound to the deaf? That is
the lesson we've just learned: that Force – Thought magic can be
used to say what words cannot. It has only been considered crude
because we have not used it with any level of skill. She just told
us that none of us are real mages."

"Do you think Rennyn's cruel?" Kendall
asked, after a moment. "Nasty, just for the sake of being
nasty?"

Sukata stared at her blankly, then shook
her head.

"If she thought it was impossible for
you to learn Thought magic – properly – she wouldn't have told you
to try and pick up the bowl. Besides, it sounds to me that the
thing that kills would-be Thought mages is being distractible or
just not able to think in whatever way it is you're supposed to
think. You don't exactly strike me as the scatty type."

"I have spent years developing my
strength," Sukata said, her thin voice dropping so Kendall had to
strain to hear it. "I would not be encouraged to take such a
risk."

"Pft – far as I can tell from what was
going on back there, we were allowed along because everyone else
wants to listen in on these so-called lessons. If they have that
much respect for her opinions on magic, are they going to argue
about what she tells you to do? And there's plenty of empty fields
in Tyrland to practice in."

"I–"

"Afraid you'll die?"

"No."

"Afraid you'll fail, then."

Sukata curled her fingers shut. "And
you?"

"Dunno. Might give it a few more
days."

"You are very pragmatic."

"Even if I can only use it to move
things about, it seems worth trying to me," Kendall said,
shrugging. "Could earn some money rescuing kittens from trees."

"Worth trying," Sukata repeated, then
looked down to the darkening water, where her mother stood
directing groups of mages to stand about writing on slates. Even
though Sukata wasn't smiling, Kendall could tell that she'd made
her feel better.

This needed to stop. She was letting
others mind her business, and worse still she'd started minding
theirs. Where would that get her?

Annoyed with herself, Kendall found a
pebble and made it hop.

Rennyn stepped into the Eferum in a
blaze of power. Until she discovered a better way to hide, her
approach would be to play on her strength, and it gave her a good
deal of satisfaction to send deadly bolts shooting in every
direction hoping one would meet her Wicked Uncle. She kept up a
steady assault on the emptiness around her, chopping and changing
between a number of pre-prepared offensive spells until Solace's
focus warned her it was time to get down to business.

Relying on one last pulse of force to
hold back immediate attack, Rennyn allowed her attention to be
taken up by the attunement. Even as far back from the breach point
as she was, the strength of the attraction between the focus and
the Summoning dragged at her, but it was easier to resist when she
was prepared for it. Done.

A small cluster of Eferum-get were
approaching the breach, and she paused to blast them with raw
power, incinerating them in a most thorough and final manner.
Nothing like stopping an attack before it even started. But there
was no wisdom in lingering in the Eferum congratulating herself, so
Rennyn stepped back into the world.

Dawn. She'd managed to get in and out in
only a few hours. The gentle hills to the east were picked out in
pastel shades, with a hint of mist between clumps of sheep. Below,
in the shadow of the cliff, the Sentene waited beneath their
summoned lights for an incursion which would not come. A gull
called, muted and distant.

"It went well?" Lieutenant Danress,
standing at the very edge of Rennyn's circle.

"Uneventful. There were a few smaller
Eferum-Get heading for the breach, but I had an easy chance to kill
them. Duramoi, I think. They weren't carrying a shield-breaker this
time, that I could see."

The faintest ring of metal made her
turn. Captain Faille had drawn that overlong sword and was gazing
out to the western horizon, his entire body taut with energy. In
the delicately-tinted light he was a roseate gossamer man, and she
saw in him an unexpected beauty. Dawn was the hour of the Kellian's
creation, and would be the time of their greatest strength.